Apr 3, 2006 - 12:00 am .- Abdul
Rahman, the Afghan Christian convert who was condemned to death for
abandoning the Muslim faith but later released under international
pressure, publicly thanked Pope Benedict XVI for his intervention and
his support.

Apr 3, 2006 - 12:00 am .- According
to a report on Lifesitenews.com, Sarah Peck, a 31 year-old British
mother, postponed treatment for leukemia when her diagnosis and
eagerly-awaited third pregnancy were confirmed on the same day in 2004.

Apr 3, 2006 - 12:00 am .- Archbishop
Jean-Clement Jeanbart of Alepo, Syria, has said that “the Church needs
Christians in the Middle East” and has therefore called it essential that
the exodus of faithful away from the region be slowed.

Apr 3, 2006 - 12:00 am .- Pope
John Paul II’s home southern Poland, where he was born in 1920, was
bought by one of Poland’s richest businessman, Ryszard Krauze, and
donated to the Catholic Church March 31.

Apr 3, 2006 - 12:00 am .- With
their current House immigration bill, the Republicans risk becoming an
anti-immigrant party and “losing ground both with Hispanic voters and
non-Hispanic Catholic voters who sympathize with their plight,” says
Deal Hudson, editor of the e-magazine “The Window.”

Apr 3, 2006 - 12:00 am .- The
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) welcomed the
decision by the World Bank Executive Board to approve debt cancellation
for an initial 17 countries, effective July 1, as well as the agreement
to cancel poor countries’ debt in the least time possible.

Apr 3, 2006 - 12:00 am .- Earlier
today, Pope Benedict XVI met with a number of Bishop’s from Africa’s
often violence-ridded Ivory Coast, to whom he explained that although
the road to peace is long and difficult, the Church must strive to
build a “world of reconciliation.”

Apr 3, 2006 - 12:00 am .- Following
his Sunday Angelus prayer, Pope Benedict echoed a request made recently
by His Beatitude Emmanuel III Delly, patriarch of Babylon of the
Chaldeans, as well as other Iraqi bishops, calling for two days of
prayer and fasting for peace in Iraq and throughout the world.

Apr 3, 2006 - 12:00 am .-
“Faithfulness
and dedication” were the two recurring words used by Pope Benedict XVI
to recall his predecessor John Paul II who died one year ago Sunday.
Tens of thousands--many of them from the late Pope’s native
Poland--gathered in Rome over the weekend to recall the life of a man
already being hailed as “John Paul the Great.”

Apr 3, 2006 - 12:00 am .- On
Sunday, the Catholic Church paused to remember the
one-year-ago-to-the-day death of Pope John Paul II. Pope Benedict XVI
said that the completion of the late Holy Father’s earthly life was the
fulfillment of a “coherent witness of faith” which constituted the
Polish Pope’s entire existence.